Doubt about free will lowers support for punishment intended to make wrongdoers suffer for their misdeeds. Support for punishment aimed at deterrence or rehabilitation is not similarly reduced. This pattern aligns with a view of moral accountability that ties responsibility to the degree of control a person has over events. When people believe wrongdoers lack meaningful control, they treat harmful outcomes more like natural events that require management rather than vengeance. The contrast between a distracted driver who causes harm and a careful driver who cannot avoid harm illustrates how perceived control affects judgments of moral wrongness and responsibility.
"One impact is that when people have doubts about free will they tend to have less support for retributive punishment. Retributive punishment, as the name indicates, is punishment aimed at making a person suffer for their misdeeds. Doubt in free will did not negatively impact a person's support for punishment aimed at deterrence or rehabilitation."
"While the authors did consider a reason for this, namely that those who doubt free will would regard wrongdoers as like harmful natural phenomenon that need to be dealt with rather than subject to vengeance, this view also matches a common view about moral accountability. To be specific, moral accountability is generally held to be proportional to the control a person has over events."
"To illustrate, consider the difference between these two cases. In the first case, Sally is speeding, texting, and sipping her latte. She doesn't see the crossing guard frantically waving his sign and runs over the children in the crosswalk. In case two, Jane is driving the speed limit and children suddenly run directly in front of her car. She brakes and swerves immediately, but she hits a child."
"Intuitively, Sally acted in a way that was morally wrong-she should have been going the speed limit, and she should have been paying attention. Jane, though she hit the children, did not act wrongly, she could not have avoided the children and hence is not morally responsible."
#free-will #moral-responsibility #retributive-punishment #law-and-ethics #deterrence-and-rehabilitation
Read at A Philosopher's Blog
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